Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop OS market. And yes, monopoly does not mean that MS is the only supplier, it means that it has very large market share and as such, it influences the market and can influence other markets more so than some other company.
Let's say that Microsoft made it so that WebM video codec (or, say, Firefox) does not work on Windows. Very few people will change their OS just to use the single program that does not work, so the result would be that the market share of Firefox or WebM would decrease sharply. On the other hand, if some Linux distribution made it so that it was not possible to run Wine (and in turn, windows programs) or h.264, the impact on the usage of those programs would not change much (even assuming that everyone stayed with their distribution).
I hear the internet connectivity in the USA is great, you have so many options that you can choose and the competition between ISPs is so fierce that my 80mbps connection must seem like dial-up to you. I mean if one ISP starts capping the connection or offers only DSL you can just move to some other ISP...
Microsoft makes a good OS (well, somehow people are buying and using it, so it must be good or Microsoft somehow manages to make it happen wven though the OS is not that good), but it should not have the power to dictate other markets (what if it made Windows only compatible with Intel CPUs, or just AMD CPUs? Should it hold that much power over the CPU manufacturers?)
Same thing with the browser. A lot of people do not know what a "browser" is, they just use the blue "e" to get to the internet. IE is not the best browser (IE8 is Ok, but this started when the newest IE version was 6) and it is not compatible with the standards, so web designers have to make pages compatible with IE and the standard browsers or they would lose clients. That's why the EU made Microsoft offer users a choice, it was hoped that some of the users would find out about the choice that they have (if someone uses IE because he prefers it, the menu was just a one time annoyance, for others, it offered a choice).
Someone will now say that notepad, paint and other programs are the same, so you have to offer choices on them too. Well, no. First of all, the other programs are basic and they do their job well, also, they are compatible with standard formats, so there is no harm in users continuing to use them, unlike IE, especially IE6.
It looks like SlimBrowser uses the IE engine*, so it probably supports whatever IE does.
* the system requirements for SlimBrowser say:
Windows 98 or above with at least Internet Explorer 5.0. Internet Explorer 8.0 is recommended for improved performance and security.
So it probably uses the IE rendering engine. AFAIK, the security and performance of Firefox, Opera or Chrome do not depend on which version of IE I have.
I still listen to radio (though I do not live in the USA, maybe the situation there is worse), mostly because I do not know the artists or the titles of the songs that are playing, so if I like what I hear i can record it to tape or continue to listen to the station to hear it again some time. I like radio especially when I have something to do and do not want to bother flipping over tapes or records or creating playlists for my PC (I also noticed that having immediate access to any song in my collection makes me listen to only a few songs all the time and ten I start hating the songs and move to some other songs, where listening to a tape or record makes me listen to all of the songs on it, so I do not listen to the same songs too often).
When Pandora was available outside the US, I used to listen to the songs on it and either save the files of the songs that I liked or do like I did (and still sometimes do) with radio - record them to tape, depending on my mood at the time.
Now Pandora is not available to me (and I could never find a fast US based proxy server) so I'm back to recording from radio, buying used records of the music that I know I would like or using torrents.
I meant the incompatibility as in "I need to google every program to know the format of the settings file". Now, this is amplified on Linux by most settings only available in the text file, if the program allows all of its settings to be changed from the UI, I do not care how it saves them, in that case, I would even probably like the separate files, it would make the program and the settings portable.
And, as far as incompatible formats go, why would my photo editor need to know the file format of my CD player program's configuration file?
No, but if the program has some settings that can only be altered in the config file or registry, I'd rather have compatible formats, that is, so I would not have to google every singe program to find out if the server IP is called "IPAddr" or "Server_IP" or "Server IP", whether to put "=", ":", " " or some other symbol between name and value and so on. Oh, and where the file is - is it C:\Program files\Program_name\program.ini (best on single user computers, so, my favorite), C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Program\Settings\Program.ini or C:\Windows\Program.ini.
Not ot mention the OS itself - on Linux, the various configuration files for system services are very different (some are text files in/etc, some are in/proc and some somewhere else), at least on Windows I can find the system settings a bit easier.
For small programs, the local (meaning in the same folder as the.exe) settings file may be better (so I can have the program on a floppy disk or a removable HDD and use it on any computer I want), but for big programs that distribute their files all over the system anyway and the OS itself, set it into the registry.
Ever tried to delete every trace of a program out of Windows? It's nearly impossible. In Linux or Mac you just go to/etc and ~/.program or ~/Library and do a find and delete.
Unless the program wants to hide, then it could hide itself anywhere. Now, some of that may be limited by permissions etc, but if, say, Autocad asks for root access so it can hide itself and you need Autocad enough to pay for it, you will give the access and it will be able to leave traces anywhere on the system.
So, for both OSs the only real way to delete every trace of a program is to monitor what it does.
Well, it seems that GP just wants to have hundreds or thousands of tiny text files all with their own incompatible formats, like it is in Linux (mostly).
Yea, just have a mechanical switch (one that disconnects the power from the device, not just sends a signal to some processor) on the front panel of the device. I am too lazy to pull the plugs of the devices, but a mechanical switch on the front panel would be welcome. TVs usually have it, but other devices that have remote controls usually do not have the switch. Old devices are usually better in tis regard. When I turn off my tube radio, it is completely off. So is my R2R tape deck.
I have an old server (Siemens Primergy N400) that draws so much power when off that it overheats because the fans are not spinning. Now that's fun. One time it overheated while running (room temperature about 40C) and when off it got even hotter. Now that's stupid. Now, most of the time the server is either on or without power so that's not a big problem, but still it's a stupid design.
but in the EU, you can still use halogen instead of standard incandescent
For now you can get incandescent lamps too. I have a small stash (about 70 lamps) of them, by the time they are banned, I'll have more. Halogen lamps are good too, but the light is a bit too white, but that can be corrected by a resistor in series with the lamp. The resistor would also reduce the inrush current when the cold lamp is turned on, hopefully increasing the lifetime of the lamp.
Crank-starting may be useful in a modern car when the battery dies. You cannot push start a car with automatic transmission (or even a car with a manual transmission if you are on flat ground and alone).
30mph is ~48km/h, so about OK to drive in a city in my country. As for the brakes - well, they worked for the car when it was new, so they would work now for the same car too.
So what? It's not like Windows XP will wear out or rust and have problems. Old hardware can have these problems, but not old software. I have a copy of MS DOS 5, it still works and can do the same things as it could when it was new.
That would make some sense if the screens were 640x480. The resolution of my monitor is 1600x1200 (I can set it to 1920x1440 if I need more space) and I do not maximize the browser anyway, so I do not see any point in reducing the interface by a few pixels. I like the UI of Firefox 3.6 and Opera 7 (Opera is customizable enough for me to have that interface on the latest version).
It does not. They lower the resolution, but if you record to (S)VHS you will get an even lower resolution (especially with VHS) so there is no difference. SVHS records about the same resolution as DVD, so there is no problem with the downscaled video.
This move is stupid - HDCP was completely broken, devices like HDFury are available. So, again, the only people who will have problems are the honest paying customers who have an older TV. Some of them will now learn about ripping, TPB and HDFury type devices.
You can use a longer tape in the VCR just as well, and nowadays the shorter tapes are not that cheaper. also, I can buy VHS tapes from other manufacturers, not just Sony (actually, in my experience, current Sony tapes are too expensive for their quality - there are cheaper tapes that have the same video quality).
DRM actually creates new problems. It annoys the people who pay for the product (unskippable ads, incompatibility etc) and makes them want to pirate it.
Hook a vinyl recorder up to the speaker leads and have a 99.9999% perfect copy made for you.
Those things are very expensive, but you can use a tape deck for that. Even now, blank cassette tapes are made and are not expensive but have quite high quality. New reel to reel tapes are very expensive, but NOS are cheaper and reel tapes have really high quality.
And I just use my VCR. Tapes are quite cheap and I can use a tape more than once if I do not want to keep what I have recorded. I also do not have to pay any monthly subscription fee.
Yes. I would have taped the song from the radio or just copied some other song. I do not have limitless amount of money, so it's not like I would just pull out the money from somewhere and go buy the song. And the owner still has his copy and the artist did not have to spend even a microsecond making my copy, so it's not lost time either.
OTOH, I , as a regular seeder (with a "up to" 80mbps (about 32mbps average) connection) do not see any money, even though I have 60+ ratio on some private trackers and upload about 10TB/month. I do not get faster downloads than I would have if I had ratio of 2 or so. I also seed some public torrents and the trackers do not care about the ratio, though on some torrents I have about 100+.
To make a hard drive, the one I have, you need metal, plastic, other materials, to make parts from the materials (platters, heads, arms, wire for motor coils and the actuator coil, PCB, chips, resistors, capacitors), you then need to put all those parts together, test the resulting device, package it and send it to me. If my friend also wants to buy that hard drive, you need to make it again, starting with the raw materials (that also need to be dug up), make the drive, test it, package it and ship it to my friend.
OTOH, to make 1000 copies of a song, you need to sing it, record it, master it, make the master then stamp 1000 copies. If I want to buy an additional copy, you only need to make the CD, you do not need to sing, record, and master the song again. And if I borrow a CD from my friend and copy it, then you do not need to get involved in any way with the making of _my_ copy, because I took my friends CD, put it in my CD player, connected it to my tape deck, put in a blank tape that somebody else made and pressed record.
If you think that I am wrong, tell me, what work went into the making of _my_ copy of the song. I know what work went into making of _my_ copy of a hard drive. Or a tape deck. Or even a blank tape.
If that's the real answer (college kids rip stuff off because they're short on cash), why isn't this considered a reasonable tactic for getting better beer than they can afford?
You can drink as much beer as you want for free, as long as your drinking does not reduce the amount of beer that the bar has. For example, a group of 10 friends go to a bar and buy 0.5L of beer. One of them drinks it, but the mug is still full, so he passes the beer to the next friend. In the end, they will have collectively drunk 20L of beer, but they only bought 0.5L and look, the mug is still full.
OTOH, when someone buys a movie DVD, the movie disappears and the actors/director/etc have to go and film another movie that is just like the one that was sold, they have to do this for every copy of the movie. So, of course, when someone steals a movie, it's quite bad, everyone involved in making that movie will have to make the movie again, but will not get money for it.
I pity the artists who sell millions of copies of some song - recording that same song millions of times to make every copy, even the illegal ones, probably gets quite boring.
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Microsoft has a monopoly in the desktop OS market. And yes, monopoly does not mean that MS is the only supplier, it means that it has very large market share and as such, it influences the market and can influence other markets more so than some other company.
Let's say that Microsoft made it so that WebM video codec (or, say, Firefox) does not work on Windows. Very few people will change their OS just to use the single program that does not work, so the result would be that the market share of Firefox or WebM would decrease sharply. On the other hand, if some Linux distribution made it so that it was not possible to run Wine (and in turn, windows programs) or h.264, the impact on the usage of those programs would not change much (even assuming that everyone stayed with their distribution).
I hear the internet connectivity in the USA is great, you have so many options that you can choose and the competition between ISPs is so fierce that my 80mbps connection must seem like dial-up to you. I mean if one ISP starts capping the connection or offers only DSL you can just move to some other ISP...
Microsoft makes a good OS (well, somehow people are buying and using it, so it must be good or Microsoft somehow manages to make it happen wven though the OS is not that good), but it should not have the power to dictate other markets (what if it made Windows only compatible with Intel CPUs, or just AMD CPUs? Should it hold that much power over the CPU manufacturers?)
Same thing with the browser. A lot of people do not know what a "browser" is, they just use the blue "e" to get to the internet. IE is not the best browser (IE8 is Ok, but this started when the newest IE version was 6) and it is not compatible with the standards, so web designers have to make pages compatible with IE and the standard browsers or they would lose clients. That's why the EU made Microsoft offer users a choice, it was hoped that some of the users would find out about the choice that they have (if someone uses IE because he prefers it, the menu was just a one time annoyance, for others, it offered a choice).
Someone will now say that notepad, paint and other programs are the same, so you have to offer choices on them too. Well, no. First of all, the other programs are basic and they do their job well, also, they are compatible with standard formats, so there is no harm in users continuing to use them, unlike IE, especially IE6.
It looks like SlimBrowser uses the IE engine*, so it probably supports whatever IE does.
* the system requirements for SlimBrowser say:
Windows 98 or above with at least Internet Explorer 5.0. Internet Explorer 8.0 is recommended for improved performance and security.
So it probably uses the IE rendering engine. AFAIK, the security and performance of Firefox, Opera or Chrome do not depend on which version of IE I have.
I still listen to radio (though I do not live in the USA, maybe the situation there is worse), mostly because I do not know the artists or the titles of the songs that are playing, so if I like what I hear i can record it to tape or continue to listen to the station to hear it again some time. I like radio especially when I have something to do and do not want to bother flipping over tapes or records or creating playlists for my PC (I also noticed that having immediate access to any song in my collection makes me listen to only a few songs all the time and ten I start hating the songs and move to some other songs, where listening to a tape or record makes me listen to all of the songs on it, so I do not listen to the same songs too often).
When Pandora was available outside the US, I used to listen to the songs on it and either save the files of the songs that I liked or do like I did (and still sometimes do) with radio - record them to tape, depending on my mood at the time.
Now Pandora is not available to me (and I could never find a fast US based proxy server) so I'm back to recording from radio, buying used records of the music that I know I would like or using torrents.
I meant the incompatibility as in "I need to google every program to know the format of the settings file". Now, this is amplified on Linux by most settings only available in the text file, if the program allows all of its settings to be changed from the UI, I do not care how it saves them, in that case, I would even probably like the separate files, it would make the program and the settings portable.
And, as far as incompatible formats go, why would my photo editor need to know the file format of my CD player program's configuration file?
No, but if the program has some settings that can only be altered in the config file or registry, I'd rather have compatible formats, that is, so I would not have to google every singe program to find out if the server IP is called "IPAddr" or "Server_IP" or "Server IP", whether to put "=", ":", " " or some other symbol between name and value and so on. Oh, and where the file is - is it C:\Program files\Program_name\program.ini (best on single user computers, so, my favorite), C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data\Program\Settings\Program.ini or C:\Windows\Program.ini.
Not ot mention the OS itself - on Linux, the various configuration files for system services are very different (some are text files in /etc, some are in /proc and some somewhere else), at least on Windows I can find the system settings a bit easier.
For small programs, the local (meaning in the same folder as the .exe) settings file may be better (so I can have the program on a floppy disk or a removable HDD and use it on any computer I want), but for big programs that distribute their files all over the system anyway and the OS itself, set it into the registry.
Ever tried to delete every trace of a program out of Windows? It's nearly impossible. In Linux or Mac you just go to /etc and ~/.program or ~/Library and do a find and delete.
Unless the program wants to hide, then it could hide itself anywhere. Now, some of that may be limited by permissions etc, but if, say, Autocad asks for root access so it can hide itself and you need Autocad enough to pay for it, you will give the access and it will be able to leave traces anywhere on the system.
So, for both OSs the only real way to delete every trace of a program is to monitor what it does.
Well, it seems that GP just wants to have hundreds or thousands of tiny text files all with their own incompatible formats, like it is in Linux (mostly).
Well, it seems that MS cannot make anything better than Windows XP/7 and Office 2003, so the company will just make the UI different each version.
Yea, just have a mechanical switch (one that disconnects the power from the device, not just sends a signal to some processor) on the front panel of the device. I am too lazy to pull the plugs of the devices, but a mechanical switch on the front panel would be welcome. TVs usually have it, but other devices that have remote controls usually do not have the switch. Old devices are usually better in tis regard. When I turn off my tube radio, it is completely off. So is my R2R tape deck.
I have an old server (Siemens Primergy N400) that draws so much power when off that it overheats because the fans are not spinning. Now that's fun. One time it overheated while running (room temperature about 40C) and when off it got even hotter. Now that's stupid. Now, most of the time the server is either on or without power so that's not a big problem, but still it's a stupid design.
but in the EU, you can still use halogen instead of standard incandescent
For now you can get incandescent lamps too. I have a small stash (about 70 lamps) of them, by the time they are banned, I'll have more. Halogen lamps are good too, but the light is a bit too white, but that can be corrected by a resistor in series with the lamp. The resistor would also reduce the inrush current when the cold lamp is turned on, hopefully increasing the lifetime of the lamp.
Does it also produce light as a point source, you know, like an incandescent lamp with clear glass?
Crank-starting may be useful in a modern car when the battery dies. You cannot push start a car with automatic transmission (or even a car with a manual transmission if you are on flat ground and alone).
30mph is ~48km/h, so about OK to drive in a city in my country. As for the brakes - well, they worked for the car when it was new, so they would work now for the same car too.
So what? It's not like Windows XP will wear out or rust and have problems. Old hardware can have these problems, but not old software. I have a copy of MS DOS 5, it still works and can do the same things as it could when it was new.
That would make some sense if the screens were 640x480. The resolution of my monitor is 1600x1200 (I can set it to 1920x1440 if I need more space) and I do not maximize the browser anyway, so I do not see any point in reducing the interface by a few pixels. I like the UI of Firefox 3.6 and Opera 7 (Opera is customizable enough for me to have that interface on the latest version).
might be selling new HDMI tvs
...or HDMI->component converters. I know that I'd rather buy a $100 converter than a more expensive TV.
So people who rip movies aren't honest paying customers?
They are. However, the corporations seem to not like people ripping the movies.
It does not. They lower the resolution, but if you record to (S)VHS you will get an even lower resolution (especially with VHS) so there is no difference. SVHS records about the same resolution as DVD, so there is no problem with the downscaled video.
This move is stupid - HDCP was completely broken, devices like HDFury are available. So, again, the only people who will have problems are the honest paying customers who have an older TV. Some of them will now learn about ripping, TPB and HDFury type devices.
You can use a longer tape in the VCR just as well, and nowadays the shorter tapes are not that cheaper. also, I can buy VHS tapes from other manufacturers, not just Sony (actually, in my experience, current Sony tapes are too expensive for their quality - there are cheaper tapes that have the same video quality).
DRM actually creates new problems. It annoys the people who pay for the product (unskippable ads, incompatibility etc) and makes them want to pirate it.
Hook a vinyl recorder up to the speaker leads and have a 99.9999% perfect copy made for you.
Those things are very expensive, but you can use a tape deck for that. Even now, blank cassette tapes are made and are not expensive but have quite high quality. New reel to reel tapes are very expensive, but NOS are cheaper and reel tapes have really high quality.
And I just use my VCR. Tapes are quite cheap and I can use a tape more than once if I do not want to keep what I have recorded. I also do not have to pay any monthly subscription fee.
Yes. I would have taped the song from the radio or just copied some other song. I do not have limitless amount of money, so it's not like I would just pull out the money from somewhere and go buy the song.
And the owner still has his copy and the artist did not have to spend even a microsecond making my copy, so it's not lost time either.
OTOH, I , as a regular seeder (with a "up to" 80mbps (about 32mbps average) connection) do not see any money, even though I have 60+ ratio on some private trackers and upload about 10TB/month. I do not get faster downloads than I would have if I had ratio of 2 or so. I also seed some public torrents and the trackers do not care about the ratio, though on some torrents I have about 100+.
To make a hard drive, the one I have, you need metal, plastic, other materials, to make parts from the materials (platters, heads, arms, wire for motor coils and the actuator coil, PCB, chips, resistors, capacitors), you then need to put all those parts together, test the resulting device, package it and send it to me.
If my friend also wants to buy that hard drive, you need to make it again, starting with the raw materials (that also need to be dug up), make the drive, test it, package it and ship it to my friend.
OTOH, to make 1000 copies of a song, you need to sing it, record it, master it, make the master then stamp 1000 copies. If I want to buy an additional copy, you only need to make the CD, you do not need to sing, record, and master the song again. And if I borrow a CD from my friend and copy it, then you do not need to get involved in any way with the making of _my_ copy, because I took my friends CD, put it in my CD player, connected it to my tape deck, put in a blank tape that somebody else made and pressed record.
If you think that I am wrong, tell me, what work went into the making of _my_ copy of the song. I know what work went into making of _my_ copy of a hard drive. Or a tape deck. Or even a blank tape.
If that's the real answer (college kids rip stuff off because they're short on cash), why isn't this considered a reasonable tactic for getting better beer than they can afford?
You can drink as much beer as you want for free, as long as your drinking does not reduce the amount of beer that the bar has. For example, a group of 10 friends go to a bar and buy 0.5L of beer. One of them drinks it, but the mug is still full, so he passes the beer to the next friend. In the end, they will have collectively drunk 20L of beer, but they only bought 0.5L and look, the mug is still full.
OTOH, when someone buys a movie DVD, the movie disappears and the actors/director/etc have to go and film another movie that is just like the one that was sold, they have to do this for every copy of the movie. So, of course, when someone steals a movie, it's quite bad, everyone involved in making that movie will have to make the movie again, but will not get money for it.
I pity the artists who sell millions of copies of some song - recording that same song millions of times to make every copy, even the illegal ones, probably gets quite boring.